Krampus (2015)

A boy who has a bad Christmas ends up accidentally summoning a Christmas demon to his family home. (Source- Imdb.com)

Krampus Trailer- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6cVyoMH4QE

(On poster: (top) You better watch out/...(bottom) Is coming to town)

I know what you're thinking, "A Christmas review so soon?" 

Hear me out. I'm reviewing Krampus now because of two things.

One: The recent drama/mystery 'When the Bough Breaks' is not online for free yet and this is my distraction from getting anxious at not seeing it as soon as possible. 

Two: It may be a christmas movie, but it is also a thriller and Halloween will soon be around the corner!

One that note, I present my thoughts on the 2015 comedy/thriller film, Krampus. Directed by Michael Dougherty who helped make other movies such as Trick 'r Treat (2007) and X-Men Apocalypse (2016), Krampus is a story about a young boy who is having the worst christmas ever and accidentally summons the equivalent of the Devil or an Evil Santa: Krampus...the Christmas Devil. 

Did this movie get me into the christmas spirit with laughter and screams of terrified children or did this turn out to be a typical slasher flick?

First off, in case you are not familiar with Krampus, let me give you a summary of who he is. 

Krampus is not a character the movie created, he was known long before this movie was made.

According to Krampusfest.com, he is a mythical holiday creature invented as early as in the 16000s and first appearing in German folklore. 

He was created as a counterpart to Saint Nicholas and instead of rewarding children with candy and gifts, Krampus focused on the naughty boys and girls and punished them for their bad behavior. Naughty children received a visit from Krampus and they were spanked, whipped and ever shackled away in Krampus' lair. Their punishment would never cease to end unless they repented and promised to be good children. 

If you're looking for a movie that accurately depicts Krampus and who he is, then I suggest not to watch this movie. Though the appearance of Krampus is top notch and creepy like he should be, the backstory and tactics of how he tortures children is incorrect. In fact, he tortures the adults almost-if not-more than the naughty kids. 

Plus his reason for being at the main character's home is also illogical compared to how he is normally summoned, though these problems can be excused when the movie is partially a comedy. It's difficult to tell if they used Krampus incorrectly because they know it's wrong or they did so because they didn't research him well enough. 

Speaking of comedy, the movie had a lot of comedic moments. The very beginning even starts out like a comedy and that had me chuckling a bit because it revealed the downside of Christmas (or any holiday for that matter). But at times, I felt like the writers were trying to hard with the comedy, especially with how the family behaves with one another. 

Granted, the reason why Krampus comes to town is because of everyone's horrific attitudes, but I don't remember one second where someone wasn't being cruel, disgusting, arguing and just being angry. I don't think I am the best at deciphering comedy, but I personally believe they overdid it with the family being complete jerks. 

Every character is so obviously cruel that it's no longer funny by the time Krampus comes. Even when they know they are in danger, some can't be serious for longer than a minute before throwing out a rude comment.

It's really hard to draw the line between what was meant to be funny and what was meant to be taken seriously. Don't get me wrong, there are some scenes that are so ludicrous (which I will mention in the spoiler section) that of course I'd know that it's meant to be taken as a joke. But other times I didn't know how to feel in certain situations because I didn't get a clear idea of what it was meant to represent.

It is mentioned through main character Max (Emjay Anthony) that he wishes for a better christmas because he's experienced really terrible times with his family and relatives, which gets me thinking, why didn't the parents do anything about that? 

For example, the main character's cousins visit and two of them purposely try to make him uncomfortable and this is done in front of Max's parents. Why didn't they try to stop the bullying? 

It's unrealistic, although is that what makes it so funny? 

Anyways, it is revealed that Max wishes for christmas to be better-how it was in the past-but we never get an idea of how it was before or what changed it. Did Christmas get bad because they started inviting other family members over? Did people lose Christmas spirit? 

If yes to the latter, what changed it? A death, a divorce? This doesn't happen overnight. 

Max also wished to have a better relationship with his family: His parents, Tom and Sarah (Adam Scott and Toni Collette) and older sister Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen), but there is little redemption for any of them and when those moments do come it feels uncomfortably forced and minuscule to the bonding they could have had if the scenes were more extended. Plus, these bonding moments only happen between the parents and never the brother and sister, and that's one the major issues I have with this movie. 

If Max wanted a stronger bond with his family, then why doesn't the movie at least have him attempt that during their time of struggle? After he summons Krampus, Max is basically just a statue in a field of wacky characters. Knowing that the real Krampus targets children, it would have been a smarter idea to focus most of the movie on Max.

Most of the characters are not really fleshed out, so we don't know why they behave the way they do but I will excuse it because after watching this movie, I do remember all of the family members and their personality, even if I didn't like them. So the movie is memorable in that sense.

We don't see much of Krampus in the picture, only around the beginning and the end. I'll let that slide though since it can build up suspense. Krampus' minions who help capture and murder people had really scary designs, in a good way. The Jack in the Box in particular was so disgusting and I didn't want to lay my eyes on him at all...and that's what made it so good!

The acting in this movie was a little blurry. I've said this often, but with the comedy and thriller rolled into one, I really couldn't decipher when the actors were trying to be funny or serious and that's because of the lines they were given. If they laid off with silly insults for a little bit, perhaps it would've made the story stronger and have the characters be more believable.

The scenery was pretty dull, the movie really only takes you to two locations and both are dark and gloomy, which usually works well with a thriller but I felt bored watching these characters sit and walk around in one spot most of the time. I think the family should have explored more of the house or ventured outdoors before Krampus came to town, so the film doesn't give off this claustrophobic vibe.

There are some jump scares, but I feel like you'd be somewhat prepared for that. For instance, if someone is staring at a mirror for a very long time and getting closer to it with eerie music playing in the background, you'd have a good guess on what's going to happen next. As for guts and blood, there isn't much of that, the most you'll receive is a bloody body part and some gross imagery but nothing that will really scare you for life.

Sometimes I don't really express my thoughts about the ending to a movie specifically, but I feel like Krampus took me on a rollercoaster near its final minutes. The ending was more or less strange and confusing. It can be open to interpretation and there are videos on Youtube that try to understand the ending so if you watch this film prepare for the final scenes to screw with your mind. 

I personally enjoyed the ending, but it still didn't make up for the utter confusion that was Krampus. I won't say it's the worst movie of all time, because it isn't. It had a great idea to present Krampus to the big screen, but the backstory is so botched that children and adults who've never heard of Krampus would assume he's just like Jason Voorhees but with christmas toys. Plus the comedy can grow annoying and you may not want anyone to live by the end of the movie. There's a talent to making annoying characters funny and likable, but I don't think it was done here. 

All in all, I would rate this movie a 2 and a half out of 5 stars.

Links

Krampusfest, Origin of Krampus- http://krampusfest.com/origin.htm

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

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Why would a kid say that Santa is used as a marketing ploy? I get if he said Santa wasn't real and that's it, but that seems too detailed. That's just me.

Why isn't the grandma (Omi) or Max talking in the language they are listening to? Is this a joke here? I mean, the only way the grandma could understand her grandson saying english is if she could understand and (more than likely) say it. 

This movie didn't show the family issues between Max, his parents and Beth, so when his letter was read about how he wanted christmas to be how it used to be, we don't get a sense of how anything could have changed, if that makes sense. And don't bring up how the they clearly showed their detachment from one another because Beth was annoyed with Max or Tom was busy with work. Nowadays, that's basically almost every family on Earth. There are annoying siblings and hardworking parents. 

This trope is not very convincing anymore if we live in a day and age where we need to work practically 24/7 to stay afloat, and besides Tom shows how he cares for Max. It's not like he's ignoring him or insulting him, he seems like a very compassionate father-and husband for that matter! Max also mentions how the parents should love each other again even though the only problem with saw with them was that Sarah didn't want Tom to talk a business call. Does that mean they're going through emotional turmoil? It's not good to talk about how Max wishes he could re-connect with his family if they seem like a normal family.

Cute baby and dog, that means they will die.

The joke with Beth leaving the house to see her boyfriend after a day of the black out and a dangerous blizzard outside is funny, but if they were going to harp so much on Beth being gone and having it be taken so seriously, then perhaps Beth should have been shown frantically calling her boyfriend and being genuinely concerned for his well being. Not just showing 1 scene with the two together with her complaining about family. If they treat Beth like she was greatly missed with no humor whatsoever, then don't make her reason for dying be as stupid as, "My boyfriend hasn't texted me in 2 hours after the black out. Let me walk into a dangerous winter storm!"

Assuming Krampus killed Beth's boyfriend...why did he do that? He's not a part of the family by blood. He was in a totally different house blocks away from Max and the others, so Krampus shouldn't have attacked him, even if he could have been a bad person.

Knowing later that the minions captured the children and didn't kill them yet (Jack in the Box eating them) why kill the boyfriend?! Again, he wasn't involved in Max's terrible christmas and yet he's given the least amount of time to try and survive?

I don't agree with Beth being taken off first. Remember, Max was mainly angry with the tomboy sisters, Jordan and Stevie. They were the main culprits for his pain and if you noticed, Max's sister does try to comfort him while he is being bullied (unlike their parents). She may have been a typical cliche bratty teenager, but when she saw her brother in trouble she was there trying to calm him down. Even if Max somehow got his family killed, Beth should have been one of the last people to go. 

Haha, Howie Jr is fat so he takes the gingerbread cookie bait even though it's coming from a chimney wrapped in chains. Of course he would do that because he's fat. How clever and funny.

Why are we suddenly in a Tim Burton animation?! Did the movie really nice a scene like that? Not that's it's bad, on the contrary the animation is really good, but why place a claymation in a real life film all of a sudden?

So the grandma is saying that because of her mistake wishing for her parents to go away, there is some sort of curse in the family? (I might be wrong, I'm not too clear on this) So even if Max didn't rip up his christmas letter, they would have been visited by Krampus anyways because people were upset? Then why didn't it happen sooner, when the Tom was young? Okay, let's just assume the father never had a bad christmas as a kid, but it is said by Max that there was a series of bad christmases because this one, so why didn't Krampus come during those bad christmases? 

The difference between grandma and Max is that grandma actually wished for her family to go away, but Max didn't. He just ripped up a piece of paper because he was angry. So when I ripped up my makeshift comic book because I was upset with how it came out, Krampus was going to visit me and kill my family? What kind of logic is that?

Why is the uncle still unsure about Krampus?! Did you not just witness your son being dragged up a chimney?

I found out one of the gingerbread cookies is voiced by Seth Green. Nice.

I know a baby would really react this way to this scenario but this baby's crying is really starting to irritate me.

I'm guessing it was supposed to be comedic how the adults were getting dragged into the snow one after the other and they would repeat that sappy music. It made me chuckle a bit.

So aside from Max, the last character who dies is Stevie who was the main culprit behind Max's outburst at the christmas party. Seriously, who decided the order of who should die? If Krampus were real, Stevie would have punished a long time ago!

Stevie never even apologized for reading Max's christmas letter, even the uncle apologized for making a silly comment. Stevie can't apologize for what basically started the killing spree?

Come on! It was all a dream? That's the worst cliche ending ever. Oh well, at least Beth gets justice.

Wait, it's not a dream? They're in a snow globe? In Krampus's lair?

So did they die and this is Hell? Or did they not die and just got trapped in a snow globe for eternity? Movie theories, help me!